


near the village the quiet village

by biochemprincess



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 19:02:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15540906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biochemprincess/pseuds/biochemprincess
Summary: There is a crying baby on his couch.Which, okay, isn't the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him. But yes, the baby screaming murder, bloodstains all over their fluffy onesie with the lion's head hood. It's kind of difficult to ignore.Okay, this is gonna be bad.





	near the village the quiet village

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, hello, I was on vacation and read the entire Fraction run in 24 hours so here we are. (I have to reread it again though, because I feel like it deserves it). I fell in love with the Hawkeyes and had to write something for them. 
> 
> Set after Issue #22 with backstory I handpicked from the wikia biographies, because comics are confusing. Accidental baby acquisition is one of my favourite tropes ever, so without further ado: Please enjoy <3
> 
> (yes, I really named the fic about the song. i'm only a little bit sorry)

There is a crying baby on his couch.

Which, okay, isn't the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him. Though it's definitely in the Top 10. Top 5 even, maybe? Hard to tell these days. He has fought goons in his boxer shorts before, so. All bets are off.

But yes, the baby screaming murder, bloodstains all over their fluffy onesie with the lion's head hood. It's kind of difficult to ignore.

Okay, this is gonna be bad.

 

-

 

"There is a baby in my apartment," he says; unnecessarily. She can hear the baby.

Clint's got his phone sandwiched between his shoulder and his ear, cradling the loud little thing in his arms, shuffling around his apartment. He'd thought it might calm the baby.

It doesn't.

"Give me twenty," she answers without missing a beat.

 

-

 

"I know this looks really bad."

"That's an actual baby, Clint."

"Katie," he groans.

It's asleep now, well she's asleep now, Kate checked the diapers. She also put the pillows around the baby on the couch so she won't accidentally roll over and fall down. Smart move, he should've expected that.

They stand next to each other, both of them gazing at the baby.

Kate crosses her hands in front of her chest. "Let's start at the beginning. How the hell did you acquire a baby?"

"Uh-," he shrugs, that full body shrug that starts in his shoulders and ends in Staten Island. "It just turned up on my couch. Screaming. Which was a dead giveaway that something is seriously wrong, you know."

"Maybe it's yours?"

"What?"

"Have you ever watched 'Baby Daddy'?"

"What?"

"And she's even blonde."

"I'm not the father of every blonde baby in New York," he argues. Kate raises an eyebrow. "Am not. And for the record, she's basically bald, so blonde's more a guess of yours than a fact. So, definitely not her father."

She's leaving it at that with a graceful wave of her hand. Kate always has to be so goddamn nonchalant about everything, even the sudden appearance of a someone else's baby in his apartment. It's got to be a futzing joke.

Clint's gonna need so much coffee to get through this shit. He walks towards the coffee maker and fills the filter with enough ground to produce his patented mixture of caffeinated tar. He can already feel the tissue of his stomach dissolving in anticipation.

"You said she was inside your apartment, right? Not your doormat or so."

He turns towards her and nods. "Yeah, pretty much the same spot she's now. Woke up because Lucky jumped all over my bed, put in the hearing aids. Suddenly there's this loud noise, I walk down, boom, baby."

Kate ponders the situation for a second. "All the blood is just a tad bit concerning, but it isn't hers, so I think we can let it slide for now."

"Great. There's no sign of anybody breaking in and the door and the windows were locked. I have no idea who or how or why. Why being most prominent question, don't ya think?"

"I'm more interested in How to be honest," she says.

Kate only said that to spite him, Clint is sure. But then that's how they spend most of their time together, going against each other in good nature, and well. It's okay. They are Hawkeyes.

The whole thing is still awfully weird. He's pretty sure it'll make its way into the Top 3 of Worst Situations.

Kate swipes her bangs out of her face. The corners of his mouth lower. She only ever does it when she's out of ideas. But then so is he.

"So what do we do now? Should we print out flyers with her face and nail them to telephone polls?"

"Hawkeye, no."

None of this has never happened on Dog Cops, he thinks, and starts making more coffee.

 

-

 

After the TMD™ (Tracksuit Mafia Disaster) he'd had cameras installed in the hallway and the window leading to the fire escape. Neither shows any movement, intruding superheroes, flying nannies or any other human or non-human visitors.

At 06:38am, roughly 15 minutes before Clint had woken up, Camera#2 (the fire escape camera) caught a colourful burst of light from inside the apartment, but nothing else. So there's that.

Lucky is excitedly confused by the baby so he keeps sniffing at her and wagging his tail. At least somebody who can see the bright side of this ordeal, Clint thinks. He downs another cup of coffee to calm his nerves, which does anything but calm his nerves, naturally.

Kate furiously types a reply on her phone, then shoves it in the pockets of her jeans again. "Neither Bobbi nor Nat know anything. Bobbi insists that I pass on that she has absolutely no relation to this baby and-"

"Of course she doesn't!" He throws his hands in the air. This is a mess. Some days he wishes things were easier and he could live a life as ordinary as all the other million people in New York, excluding superheroes and villains. Today's one of those.

She puts a hands on his shoulder. "It's okay, boss. And Nat wishes us the best of luck, but she's got a gig in Santiago de Chile right now, so she can't help."

"How do you know all this?"

"We've got a group chat."

"Who is we?"

"Bobbi, Nat and I. We like to complain about you," Kate answers breezily, as if it goes without saying. Maybe it does.

He doesn't get paid enough for this. In fact, he doesn't get paid at all. If he could he would give himself a raise. Or pizza. They should really order pizza, pizza for breakfast is a thing.

"Pizza?"

Kate shakes her head and points down. "Baby. She needs food. And diapers. And us, so we can find her parents." She bows down and gingerly picks up the baby. "Get in loser, we're going shopping."

"We?" Clint rubs the spot above his eyebrow right where the brewing headache sits. Ouch. Right, he put a band-aid over the spot earlier, because one of his boomerang arrows came back just a tad too fast during training yesterday.

Livin' la vida loca is a whole lotta easier when you're a god or genetically modified, that's all.

"Sure. You, me and Leo."

He looks at Kate, then at the aptly nicknamed baby in the lion onesie, back at Kate. She's wearing her no-nonsense face, the one that either saves him from a lot of trouble or gets him into even more trouble. It's a 50/50 chance.

"Eh," he says and shrugs. He's willing to take his chances.

 

-

 

Clint hates his chances.

He isn't exactly sure where Kate has conjured the credit card from, but it works and not in his favour. Because she bought a baby sling first thing and Kate is not the one wearing it.

Outside the store the August sun is burning down relentlessly, the humid air suffocating the streets. If he's completely honest with himself, as rarely as he is, Clint's utterly thankful it's summer and not autumn, that the air condition inside the Babies 'R Us knock-off isn't properly working and sweat is trailing down his back and his front where the baby is strapped to his chest. Because he can barely handle this now and he doesn't want to think about October at all.

Kate leads him through the neon-lit hallways, the lesser known 10th circle of hell, throwing diapers and various baby formulas, bottles and pacifiers into the shopping cart. His gaze lingers at the baby toys and he wonders if Lucky would enjoy a galaxy-themed stroller chain. He puts it to the other stuff when Kate isn't looking.

As if she wouldn't notice.

The look on her face is just on this side of exasperated, but they both know it's only for show. She's eyed the damn thing herself.

"Anybody ever told you you're the literal worst, you doofus with the heart of gold?" she asks him and her eyes are so wide with solemn, deep-rooted honesty and he wishes he could hide from her gaze, because he can't endure it when she breaks into his apartment in the middle of the night to watch TV and even less now in the middle of the day in a kids store with a baby strapped to his chest.

Sometimes it just hits him that Kate really walked away once. And he gets it, because honestly? Hard same.

If it were possible to split your personality from your body, his body would take the next possible space shuttle to Jupiter or some shit so they could have a break. A real one, not that Ross/Rachel bullshirt he picked up on the late night Friends re-runs.

Apart from that, it was the power move of the century and if it hadn't killed him from the inside out, he'd have applauded her as she walked away with his dog by her side.

But she came back.

He doesn't deserve her. He doesn't deserve any of the people in his life, including Nat, Steve, Bobbi, and even Tony.

"Only you, Katie-Kate."

"Well then you know it has to be true," and the air around them simply dissolves. It's a gift, this partnership and her attidue, he's gotta try to not run it to the ground again.

"I need to take a picture for Billy and Teddy. And Nat, definitely," Kate says suddenly. Her mouth splits into the biggest grin in the universe. Sometimes she's hitting all the hackneyed cliches.

"Don't send it to-"

"I won't, don't worry."

Clint breaths out a sigh of relief; needlessly anyway, she's always been the better Hawkeye. He's an asshole too often, sometimes even for the sake of it all, but he tries to limit being a futzing jerk to extreme situations. His brain and in further consequence his personality are an Escher painting, exactly like the ones in the exhibit Kate once dragged him to.

He lets her take the pic and a few selfies. It's okay.

Leo chooses to grace them with her attention and awakes, lazily blinking a few times. Then she starts crying, because baby things.

"Aw, baby, no."

 

-

 

"Are you happy?" Clint cannot let go of the thought ever since it occurred to him earlier, it's lodged deeply in his brain matter now, stuck like an arrow he can't get out.

"Right now?" Kate asks, a wave of confusion passing over her face. She's sitting on his couch cross-legged, Lucky's head dropped on one knee while feeding the baby a bottle of formula. "Could use some improvement."

He shakes his head. "I meant-," he gestures with his hands, signing the words instead of speaking them, "with your life in general."

"Happiness is a very subjective matter,"

Okay, this is going even worse than he expected.

"You don't have to stay for my sake."

Kate bursts out laughing. "And leaving you to take care of her alone? Not a good idea. You can barely take care of yourself."

"I didn't,-" he sighs, _that's the point_ , "- I mean in general, day to day. I don't need a babysitter." _I don't want you to feel obligated_ , he doesn't say.

"I do what I want, Clint. So me sitting here in your shitty apartment with the borrowed mystery baby and the cold pizza and the mopey company, I chose this, ya know? It's all good, don't worry. I'm your partner, not your babysitter."

He'd be offended on behalf of everything if this weren't so important. He can't be the reason for her misery, can't pull her down to his level. She's Hawkeye, far too similar for his own comfort, and he can never drag her down to his level of shame and self-pity. She's his partner.

But then nobody has ever told Kate Bishop what to do. An oxymoron, a paradox, both or neither, he always mixes them up.

"Just,- just say if you have to."

"You'll notice when I start yelling at you and your life choices again," she says. Fair enough. 

Kate uncrosses her legs, gently nudging Lucky away so she can get up and rearranges the baby in her arms. With one hand she supports her neck and then holds her out towards him.

"Come on, she needs to burp and I don't wanna soil my shirt, it's my favourite. Yours looks like it belongs to hazardous waste anyway, so no harm done."

 

-

 

They babysit Leo the Lion Onesie Baby for five days. The name does grow on him with every day. And if he starts humming The Lion Sleeps Tonight to get her to finally futzing sleep that's between them, really.

She pees on Clint twice, throws up on him three times as often, cries a lot in general. He could get behind the crying if it were socially acceptable for functioning adults. Not that he considers himself one, but Kate would probably oppose the idea.

SHIELD doesn't have the slightest clue on who she is or where she came from. It's great. Really. Hill tells him to keep the baby away from her and the dislike seems mutual.

But the thing is, in spite of everything and anything, he kinda gets used to it? The question mark being there on purpose. He should see a doctor for this.

Enter the last person they'd ever expect to turn up to claim the baby.

 

-

 

Can you guess it?

 

-

 

It's the one and only America Chavez. (No, not that one. The one from a parallel universe. Go figure.)

 

-

 

Yeah, Clint's face looked like that too.

 

-

 

"Wait a sex - sec, whatever. She's mine, like actually, like in the universe you are from?"

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Kate throw a fistbump in the air in an evident display of victory. "Man, this is even better than Baby Daddy," she says gleefully.

The slightly older America, the different one, who has more scars on her arms but also more laughter lines around her mouth, nods. "You aren't even that bad."

"Not to be the spoilsport, but you just had to send her to a different universe to save her life, so," Kate throws into the conversation, still grinning.

Clint throws a pizza slice at her, Kate catches it before it hits her face. "I'm sure it wasn't my fault." He turns towards America. "It wasn't?"

She rolls her eyes at him, like their version of America. Some things apparently don't change, not even across the multiverse. "No, it wasn't."

"What about her mom?"

"Long story short: she has one."

"Thanks, I wouldn't have guessed," he mumbles. Not helpful. At all.

"Do you want to know her name?" America asks, nodding towards Leo.

He thinks about it for a moment, it's tempting. "Nah, Leo sounds cool. I'll remember her like that." Clint stares at America with the baby in her arms and the stuff they bought in a backpack; as if it's muscle memory, as if she does it all the time and he tries to imagine a universe where has a kid that has Miss America around to save her life. "It's not too dangerous in your neighbourhood?"

Once again the different America looks at him with that placid, calming smile on her face, it's almost unnatural. "Sole exception, won't happen again. i'm sorry, but we have to go now." 

He nods, anything else would only cause more headache than the already pounding storm at his temples. There's very little resemblance between them, except maybe for the soft blonde fuzz growing on her head.. Though he doesn't know what he liked like as a baby, there are no photographs left from his childhood. He desperately hopes, wishes, Leo's life is better than his own. 

America opens the portal, throws one look back to them, before stepping through it and leaving behind a life that's as empty as half a dozen days ago, but with far too many memories now. He should get an Avengers Discount for psychotherapy.  

"Multiverses are confusing," is all he says instead. 

"You've got no idea," Kate answers. She punches his upper arm. "Let's get Chinese, my treat."

 

-

 

A physical version of the pic Kate took in the baby store inexplicably finds its way on the fridge.

Clint leaves it be.

 

**Author's Note:**

> since this is my first fic about these characters i'd love to hear your thoughts and everything. i live for comments. thank you for reading.
> 
> find me @ mightyjemma.tumblr.com


End file.
